I try to decipher what is “fake” vs. real news. It helps going back to when I started reading newspapers in Battle Mountain, Nev., a small town with a weekly paper that carried the usual U.S. headlines, sports and weather. Local news made up the bulk of the paper with crime reports, births, deaths and weddings. Even local radio and television news was user-friendly.
Nowadays the most sensational, gut-wrenching items that feed our emotions — grisly crimes and murders, hate crimes, racial and political tensions — fill the news. Yes, they’re important to publish, but it seems like the agenda of media is to provide a nonstop diet of the worst of humanity. Rarely do we see or hear stories of peoples’ acts of compassion and kindness toward others. If we do, it is a rare human-interest story.
Hurricane Harvey made compassion the top news again. There has been little said about marches, protests, political divisions, government bashing. People are pulling together all over the country to help our neighbors in need in Texas. There is a more unified feeling in general.
News outlets shouldn’t quickly return to the negative, politically and racially charged gruel but, rather, give this country a little while to feel good about itself again.
